House Alive! | natural building and design. Natural Building 101: Building a Cob House. Materials Published on September 12th, 2008 | by ziggy This year, I started building my very own cob house. Cob is an extremely environmentally-friendly natural building material composed of sand, clay, and straw, and it has withstood the test of time and the elements over many past generations all over the world.
Haven’t heard of it? Then read on to learn more about this creative, beautiful, and highly ecological building process. What is cob? Cob building dates back hundreds of years ago, and cob houses built over 500 years ago in Europe are still inhabited to this day. The properties of cob Cob structures are monolithic: layers of material are worked together to produce one massive structure, compared to something like adobe, which is typically made into forms that can be stacked like bricks.
Cob: beautiful and environmental The main components of cob building – sand, clay, and straw, come directly from the earth, oftentimes right beneath our feet. Cobbing is simple and cooperative (p.s. Green future is possible! The eco house of Simon Dale WWW.GOODNEWS.WS. A Low Impact Woodland Home. Earthbag Construction. EarthBag Homes - you're standing on the building materials... earthbag home Long sandbags are filled on-site and arranged in layers or as compressed coils.
Stabilizers such as cement, lime, or sodium carbonate may be added to an ideal mix of 70% sand, 30% clay. Straw may also be added. The earthbags are then plastered over with adobe. Arquitectura en Equilibrio (Architecture in Balance) flickr.com earthbag home Plastic bags recycled into plastic bags -- if plastic does not break down for a thousand years, this building is sure to last several lifetimes.
Earthbag construction Foundations differ as per site. Earthbag construction The time consuming part, filling the bags. Earthbag construction Testing the strength of an arch. Earthbag home Project Seres, Guatemala. projectseres.org, flickr.com earthbag home CalEarth -- Emergency Shelter Village, Hesperia, California. Earthbag home Cal Earth -- Emergency Shelters. Earthbag home CalEarth let the layers show.
Resources: Lessons: More Pictures:
Eco-Dome - download it at calearth.org.